tim cook

Popular activist investor Carl Icahn recently published an open letter to Tim Cook, asking for an increased share buyback from the company. And among other products mentioned in the letter, he points to an earlier discussion regarding the possibility of Apple releasing its own television set in 2016.

Tim Cook shed some light on the phenomenal growth of Apple TV at the stockholders meeting held last Friday. According to the stats provided by him, Apple grossed over $1 billion last year just from the set-top box sales and with our superior math skills, that turns out to be 10 million devices. That is double the sales in 2012 and quadruple that in 2011. And talking about a device showing such a geometric growth, Tim Cook has accurately said, ‘It is getting more difficult to call it a hobby these days’.

At the AllThingsD D11 Conference held in southern California on Tuesday, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook revealed that the company had sold more than 13 million Apple TVs, and about half the number were sold in the past year. This numbers are actually amazing, especially for a product that Apple has put little marketing effort into.

During yesterday’s Q3 earnings call Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company sold 1.3M Apple TVs in Q3 2012, up more than 170% year over year, that totals at 4M units so far this fiscal year and 6.8M since Apple began selling the iOS-based, $99 model (Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3). Tim Cook called these numbers “pretty incredible.”